After a rainy week at the NCAA West Regional in College Station, Texas, 17 Iowa track and field athletes qualified for the NCAA Championships.

The Hawkeyes will be sending athletes from 10 individual events and two relays to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon.

Hawkeye senior Laulauga Tausaga brought home a gold medal from the regionals in the shot put with a throw of 17.97 meters, and Kat Moody finished 12th in the event with a career-best 16.65-meter throw. Both Tausaga and Moody will compete in the shot put at the NCAA Championships.

“We had a great day [Thursday] in the women’s shot put with Lagi leading the way with a season’s best performance to take the win and Kat Moody punching her first ticket to Eugene,” Iowa Director of Track and Field Joey Woody said in a release.

Tausaga, the defending national champion in discus, will also compete in the discus throw at the NCAA Championships as she produced a second-place finish at the West Regional, hitting a 63.28-meter mark. It is the second time in her career that she qualified for the NCAA Championships iin both discus and shot put — she also accomplished the feat in 2018.

Iowa senior and Texas A&M transfer Serena Brown put together a third-place finish in the discus with a 59.81-meter throw. Brown qualified for the NCAA Championships three times as an Aggie. She has now made NCAA Championships once as a Hawkeye.

Rainy conditions at E.B. Cushing Stadium on the Texas A&M campus forced the regional meet to delay some of its Day 3 events to the final day of the meet on Saturday.

On the last day of the meet in College Station, the Hawkeyes saw seven individuals and two relays qualify for the national championships in Eugene.

“[Saturday] was a great day for our men’s and women’s programs,” Woody said in a release. “We took a huge step forward and punched tickets to Eugene in multiple events.”

Both Hawkeye senior Jaylan McConico and junior Jamal Britt qualified in the 110-meter hurdles. McConico won the event with a time of 13.41 seconds, while Britt finished 10th at 13.67 seconds.

Britt also qualified in the 400-meter hurdles with a sixth-place time of 49.70. 

McConico headed the 4×100-meter relay with Antonio Woodward, Gratt Reed, and Austin Kresley to put up a qualifying time of 39.57 seconds.

“Jaylan and Jamal both had great performances in the 110 hurdles,” Woody said. “Jamal came back to run close to his PR in the 400 hurdles and punch a second ticket to Eugene. The men’s [4×100] relay got things started, qualifying for the NCAA finals for the eighth straight year. I was proud of how they competed given that was the first time all season we put those four together.”

The 4×400-meter relay also qualified for the national championships as Wayne Lawrence Jr., Jenoah Mckiver, Austin Lietz, and Julien Gillum put up a time of 3 minutes and 4.71 seconds.

Lawrence Jr. doubled up at the meet, finishing fifth in the 400-meter race with a time of 45.49 seconds.

“I thought the women competed very well throughout the entire weekend. We just didn’t quite make the cut to get some of those events to Eugene,” Woody said in a release. “I thought our men performed extremely well across all of today’s events and dealt well with the weather delays from [Friday.] They came out on fire in the first event and closed things out in the final two events. We are set up to have a great NCAA finals. I am very excited for our qualifying crew and I expect that we will put up big points as a team in Eugene.”

The Hawkeyes will head to Eugene, Oregon, June 9-12 to compete in the NCAA Championships.